In 2014, Paul and Atiek Malanchuk began a massive three-year task of building an authentic Balinese-themed home with three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms in Waratah.
The Malanchuks share a mutual love for Bali, which is also where they met. (Atiek was born in Sumatra.) From the marble floors to the ornate roof, the low kitchen bench to the Balinese gazebo, no detail is overlooked.
"I think it is the relaxation, quite calming and quite natural, natural stone, natural timbers. It's a place where you want to relax, it's not in your face," Paul says of why they love Bali.
"The different smells, incense, those sort of things, that's what strikes you as well as the architecture, the openness. It's different to the rest of Indonesia."
In their home they used a lot of glass to enhance the openness. The dining room is the centre of the house which opens to the gardens on one side and the pool and gazebo on the other.
They had the right connections to be as thorough and detail-oriented as possible.
"The stars aligned for us in a way. We started the process and it evolved," Paul says.
Their architect is Paul's good mate, Martin Morrell, who worked in Bali for several years and lectured at Udayana University.
Morrell worked with the Malanchuks to make sure they got things right. When they began building they were thinking small, a few Balinese pieces and timber. They eventually decided to go all out using timber and stone from Bali and local builders, Malman Constructions.
It took Paul a year to make sure the builder got the Balinese vibe. The Malanchuks took him to Bali twice to make sure he understood their vision and the products they were working with.
Atiek's brother-in-law is a civil engineer and a project manager in Indonesia and knows how to find top-quality Bali products. They realised they were in a unique, great position through Atiek's family and connections.
They also worked with the company Bali Prefab. Bali Prefab makes homes and resorts all over the world (like the Four Seasons in Bora Bora). They ship anywhere.
"Their quality was second to none," Paul says. "The way things work in Bali, the labour is cheaper than here, so getting things with a whole lot of details, you can do there rather than here. We were concerned about bringing stuff into Australia; it was a little bit tricky."
It was an adventure working with a Bali vision while sticking to Australian standards. They had 20 tons of stone, mainly their marble floors and decorative pieces, flown into Sydney. They had to be shipped to Newcastle.
"When they shipped the floor, close to 18 ton of marble, they shipped it loose! They didn't put it in crates," Paul says.
He jokes he thinks the suppliers thought he had a dozen Indonesians to help him unload nearly 1000 tiles which weighed 20 kilos each, all stacked nicely in the truck. Fortunately he had some good mates to help him unload all day long, but he said if he could do it differently he would have spent the money on crates.
Working internationally, sometimes things do get lost in translation, but now the tile floor is stunning and makes it all worth it.
The pool area is beautiful and relaxing and his wife loves the kitchen. They designed a kitchen specifically for her, to her height with a low bench so she can put all her weight into grinding the spices with the mortar and pestle. He's an electrical engineer, so he made sure the house was low energy, smart house. It has concealed LED lighting and is enabled through Google.
For anyone curious about building something similar, Paul says the best thing you can do is have time to properly research what you're doing. They researched everything they could up front; they searched Indonesia looking for artworks. They had custom furniture made; they were deliberate and specific.
"I don't think there's a space in here we're not happy with," he says.
This year Paul and Atiek had a baby, Angelica, so their lifestyle and home definitely feels complete.
